Tag: Shootings

Well, guys, it’s that time of year again. Parents are posting shitty pictures of their children with their backpacks on, the Pumpkin Spice goop is being dusted off, and the sky is grey with clouds, or smoke, I can’t tell anymore. This also means that I’ll be having to go back to work. As most of you guys may know, I’m a teacher and my school goes back on Wednesday.

Photo by Pixabay

To be honest, I’m not super excited to be back. Don’t get me wrong, I am super excited to see my students and get back into the theatre with them. I’ve been working really hard on my plan for the year and I think it’s going to be a really fun time.

I’m not excited to go back because I’m scared. I live in the United States, which has a long history of school shootings and mass shootings. Since the year 2000, there have been 194 school shootings (just school shootings, not mass shootings) which have caused hundreds of students and teachers to lose their lives long before their time.

Now, the name of this blog is called “I’m a Satanist and…” because, well, I’m a Satanist and I have shit to say, so it’s not really a secret who I am on a fundamental level. A large part of being a Satanist is loving life, what ever that means to you. In order to do that, one thing must be true: You have to be alive.

I value my life very much because I only have this one and I am going to enjoy it, damn it. At the same time, I’m a teacher and I have a very special place in my heart for the kids I teach and interact with on a daily basis. I would do anything in the world for them, which includes putting myself in a place where I might die. I hope I would make the right choice.

Photo by Pixabay

I’m scared to go back to work because I don’t want to be put in a place where I might have to make these choices. I don’t want to hear those kids screaming in either fear or pain because somebody decided to bring a gun into their space and kill them. I don’t want to die, either. I don’t want to be a name on the news because I died or had to be a hero.

I’m not a police officer, nor a firefighter, nor any other flavor of hero or first responder. I teach middle and high school drama. I want to teach the kids how to project and the right way to put a Gobo into a light. I don’t want to teach them how to hide from somebody who wants them dead.

I know there are people who say that guns aren’t the problem, but they’re also not part of the solution. I’m begging everybody out there to get up and make your voices heard. If you like this blog, get out and vote or march or call a representative or anything because you will be helping keep me and my students safe.

I woke up this morning at 8:43 and went to the bathroom. I had my morning glass of OJ and sat down to give myself a minute or two to shake the feeling of sleep off of my shoulders. I rubbed the tired from my eyes and grabbed my phone to catch up on the happenings in the world.

As soon as Twitter opened, my body went rigid and I started to cry. Even now as I am writing this tears have welled up to blur my vision. Here’s what I saw.

I almost don’t know what to write. I’m still in shock and trying not to imagine the faces of my own sweet students lying on the ground shot to death. I love my students to the moon and back, all of them, so when I see these shootings, all I can think about is when it is going to be my school? When will I have to decide to save myself or save a student? Will I make the right choice?

My heart breaks for the people involved. Basically a gunman came in and blasted students away with a shotgun. Since he is white the news is letting us know all about how he was “Quiet” and “Normal”. I even know he used to play football. I don’t care about the shooter. I don’t.

I don’t even know the faces and names of the babies who will never graduate. They will never go to prom or get accepted to a university. They will never fall in love or get married or have babies. And I still don’t know their names. 10 people were killed. 9 students and a teacher just trying to make it to the weekend were killed. 10 others were wounded.

Santa Fe High School Students 28 days ago

I feel defeated. It’s hard not to when children are dying and nobody is doing anything about it. But, I will not be defeated. I will not stop making sure each of the students at my high school know they can come to me if they feel as if they want to do something like this and it can be dealt with safely. I will not stop teaching my students how to run, hide, fight. I will not stop doing active shooting drills in my classroom, even if admin doesn’t want me to. I will not be defeatedbecause that is not productive.

We owe it to our students to do something, anything, so they stop dying. I used to be nice about this and say we should try to appease both sides but I’m done with that. It’s obvious to me that we as a species can’t have guns. So yeah, at this point, we need to take away the guns. Feel free to shit on me and try to say I’m just a bleeding-heart libtard. I don’t care.

Until our students stop bleeding out from gunshot wounds, I want to take your guns away. And I am an advocate for people having guns if they want them, but I am also an advocate for gun safety and consequences. If this many students died in school from food poisoning, we would be doing something. Gun safety zones aren’t enough and obviously people don’t give a shit about those, so just take them all away.